State of mind a Labyrinth fanfic
by blue-meany
Summary: Sarah has changed, too much now. she has finally blown it, three years later and everything has changed, but read to find out who sends who to the labyrinth THIS time...
1. Chapter 1

**There was a thud and a creak as Sarah plonked down on the ****white leather sofa. What a day! It could have been night, she wasn't really aware of time right yet. Her head was still fuzzy from all that lovely cherry flavoured punch. Her parents weren't home yet, and even if they were who was to say they'd even notice her, nowadays it was all Toby, Toby, Toby. She had been babysitting him, what a bore, but events eventually turned around for the better as she took her chance to escape.**

**That ****thought brought a miserable thought to her warm, dopey head; where was Toby? You know that feeling when something was wrong, so wrong, but you had to wait to know what it was? That's what she had. That feeling like a thousand wrinkled hands running their fingers down her spine made her jump up, let her know what an idiot she had been. Again.**

**Toby was now five, tall for his age with ****straight, fluffy white-blond hair. It had been four years since Sarah's… bizarre encounter with Jareth, the Goblin King. His name still left a bitter taste on her tongue. Her adventures in the labyrinth seemed as distant and unreal as an old nightmare. One that chilled you but at the same time you couldn't care less about, it was a small domino that had fallen to collapse the rest of her life, so tiny it didn't matter what it was that started the collapse, just that now she had to live through it. Nightmare. Horrid, horrid place. That's what she had been telling herself the day she got back, squashing down the glimmering pebble of delight that kept coming back when she looking in that dressing table draw with what could only be called her labyrinth trinkets. The thought pushed up until it was full and blossoming in her head. But then again, it wasn't really a nightmare was it, she thought. All the abnormal friends she had made there and all the puzzles she had worked out. And Jareth. Was he really all that bad? The 13 hour strike still chimed in her head when she was asleep; it woke her from fickle daydreams and terrifying nightmares. Sometimes she just wished that she could go back there just renew her daydream. No, she didn't, she really didn't! That would mean facing Jareth; one in a million people solve the labyrinth, who's saying she would be able to do it again? No one. She squashed that thought down and the other unspeakable one, instantly making her knees less weak. Toby! She woke again from her daydream. Toby. She had supposed to be looking after him but still she had been lead away out of the house by, who was it this time? Oh yes, it was Josh today. Gorgeous josh, big Bowie fan, rugged hair and a smile that made your mouth drop. Her parents would be furious! What a thing to loose your brother for!!!**

**With a whoosh she shot off the sofa and hurtled upstairs, taking the steps three at a time. She wrenched open the door to his room and then into others desperately trying to find the little boy. He was a good boy but still had the adventurous spirit of his elder half sister. ****He lived in a daydream, and even at five,m loved to read. She was a prematurely good reader and could manage a small childrens novel if he put his mind to it. He was also known to run away frequently, she thought she'd only be gone five minutes, just walking Josh back to his house down the road, checking out the party. The white door flew open and she walked to wards his bed, crumped and she was terrified at what was under it, as she should so rightly be after four years of checking your rooms for goblins. No Toby, no could Toby have got to!? She flew back downstairs as the clock stroke 12.**

**"Shoo****t!" she exclaimed, eyes widening. Her parents were going to be back any moment. She dashed in the kitchen, living room, study, her dads office, conservatory, into the garden, where was he?!**

**Suddenly a rustling came back from behind a tree. Sarah gave out a sigh of relief as her brother, surrounded by knights and horses and trucks, rolled over in a deep dewy sleep surrounded by the long****, night-dampened grass of her back garden.**

**She walked over to him and picked him, his legs reflexively wrappin****g themselves around her waist. He was carried upstairs Sarah 'ssh'ed her Toby into his room, turning on the glaring light she plonked him onto the floor, wrapping him in a towel and quickly putting on his stripy blue pyjamas. She still didn't like it in there, it was scary in the dark as small ugly beings leapt down the doorframe and walls, reaching out to touch, grab, snatch Toby. They never did, this was purely Sarah's imagination playing tricks on her. She put him in bed and then, creeping out slowly, turned the light off.**

**The doorbell rang, it was 12.08 pm. They were late, again. **_**Why do they always do this, every Friday go out, spend money on themselves and talk? I mean, what do they have left to talk about? They are married and everything, I mean they aren't a normal couple. Normal couples care about their children.**_** Sarah thought, selfishly un-amused.**

**She opened the door and as usual, instead of a greeting, her stepmother said "where's Toby?"**** and pushed past Sarah is a haste to get upstairs before anyone else to check on her poor baby.**

**Without waiting for an answer she pushed past the dumb, bored Sarah. She looked back at her dad who smiled and gave her a kiss on the cheek.**

**"Hi honey, how are you? Had a good time?"**

**Sarah nodded. "Yeah, I watched TV and, erm, I had a read of that new book you bought me."**

**"Oh yeah****, great! Did you like it?"**

**"It was brilliant!" she said, her fingers crossed, hoping to distract him from the messy plates, ****messy sofa and lonely plastic cup that had somehow followed her home. Her head was still fizzing but not enough to make her story unbelievably, or so she thought.**

**"Which bit did you get to?" her dad asked, intrigued that his daughter was actually taking an interest in Jane Austen.**

**"Oh, erm, I, I didn't really get that far to be honest, dad." The unintentional hiccup and dizzy swerve blew it.**

**"Oh, oh no Sarah, Sarah, S****ARAH!" he said, voice bellowing "You-"**

**"Steve!" her stepmother shrieked from upstairs, "come quickly".**

**Sarah followed his massive strides up the stairs, trying not to be crushed, which is pretty much what he wanted to do to her at that minute.**

**He went in Toby's room to find him crying. Rebecca looked up with a worried expression on her face. She had her hands on his pink cheeks and he was snuffling cold, shivery breaths. "He's ice cold." She said through stiff lips.**

**The doctor came and went, all that time Sarah just sat in the study,**** head blurry, and her brain trying to make sense of the words beautifully buried in the old comforting tatty copy of the Labyrinth. Memories came and went about her time and what she would have changed if she had had the chance to re-do that day she wished her brother away. The door creaked open, her dads tired, worry ridden face peered round. He looked older, sadder, exhausted. Sheme clung to her, she'd done this to him. He strode in, sitting down on the creaking leather chair. He sighed.**

**"Dad I-"Sarah started****, not knowing what came after.**

**"Don't." H****er dad said. He slid upright and bent forward, chin resting on hands. He looked deep in her eyes and then blinked, flinching away as if he didn't want to see any more.**

**"That's that Sarah, your brother is very sick. What happened? Did you just shut him outside this time while you had boys round here? Or was it purely by accident that you just somehow fell asleep and the door slid shut on him playing happily out in the sun at 9 o clock?****" He accused sarcastically yet still scarily like the excuse Sarah had planned. "You know what; I don't even want to know, ok. I'm sick of your excuses."**

**"I didn't mean-"**** Sarah tried.**

**"NO!" he exploded. "Its always excuses, excuses, excuses with you isn't it Sarah? Don't think I don't know what's going on with you, because I know, I know**** alright. Parties, fun, boys" he glared at her accusingly. She shrank back. "You know, I almost miss that Sarah three years ago, she'd go off on her own, she would read and imagine, she would take her dog for walks and draw, dream up stories, then one night, what do we know? You're back here, music playing, it's a wonder Toby managed to sleep, poor boy, I don't know what you must have done to him but he wasn't himself at all after that, it was like he was traumatised." Sarah's blood boiled at how her father just didn't know what she had put herself in to get Toby home and happy. "There were people coming round claiming that the noise was, how did they put it, disturbing them? That was it.**

"**Then you clear out your room, getting rid of your toys, books, treasures. The only thing you have now is your tatty old Labyrinth book and that beloved dressed china girl in the glass box. What happened to you Sarah? Don't tell me that you simply grew up. Grown up girls don't take their dads credit card out and buy tonnes of tarty new clothes, they don't have boys round every single night and go uninvited to wild parties. They don't get drunk and call their fathers in the middle of the night to come pick them up from goodness knows where!"**

**These accusations hurt but so did the truth. Sarah had come home, that night. She had felt so awful at breaking someone's heart, ****tried to hide it all away in a draw, in a bin, it was time for her to become a woman, echoing her stepmother's harsh words she did try, but all she gained was the attention of boys and this then had slid into her routine. Her stepmother wasn't much of a role model and it wasn't like she had any girl friends to confide in. Out of her few friends she had Lily, Debbie and Patty who seemed to each other comfortably just being there so as not to be taunted as a loner. What was she supposed to do? She couldn't just forget about the labyrinth but how could she keep going on as the same girl who broke someone's heart? She had had to change, she had no choice. Steve reclined, looking at her in a whole new dim light.**

**"Dad, I, I'm, well, I just don't know what to say to you." Sarah was in a tricky situation, there was only one way out. "Dad, I can't believe you are being so selfish!"**

**"What? Selfish? Oh don't you dare young lady. Don't you dare try and turn this around to me!"**

**She just ignored him, "how dare you sawn in here, pretending like you care for me at all, when Toby's really all you care about. How dare you accuse me of untrue facts when you spend every night out with, Rebecca" she made the name last three short syllables, "how dare you!"**

**Her dad seemed to have given up on her. He snatched her book away as she rudely tried to ignore him and focus on it. "How I wish you would pay attention to real life, its all I can do to keep up with you. First it's all this junk about labyrinth and this stupid Jareth man, and then when you finally get sick of it, you plunge into another world, parties, boys, alcohol. I feel like I don't know who you are anymore". He almost whispered.**

**Pages flicked as her father looked through it sadly. "You read such wonderful stuff, Sarah, just take a hint from all the characters in this book. Look, this girl even has the same name as you!" He put the book down and looked at her genuinely scared face,**** she knew which page he was on, the dog-eared one. She could see his eyes flitting tired but interestedly across the page, would he say it? No, how can he send her back to the goblin king? How would she react, or him? After all, Jareth loved her. She couldn't face him. That is the person shed become because of him. Anyway. Who's to say he will still love her even mutated into this monster.**

**"****'Ben's cries from the bedroom came floating up the stairs, Sarah couldn't take it any more', this girl was so spoilt, just like someone else I know, but at least she still went all the way through that hideous underworld to rescue her brother. I bet you still wouldn't do that would you Sarah? Still, only fiction. I don't know what to do. Please, just help me out here!"**

**He almost laughed "maybe I should just send you through a labyrinth and see where you end up" he sighed heavily. "I've bought the books, read the columns, been to all the classes, what is wrong with you? I'm 39. I'm getting old, I just can't take it, if this goes on then you will know what I might just have to do don't you?"**

**Sarah raised her eyebrows, willing him not to look down. Steve may be her father but he was on the verge of exploding. ****He wasn't himself. She rather he lashed out at her than send her back there, even if he didn't believe it. He was on page 23, the willing chapter. The chapter Sarah shamefully wished her brother away. Her father's eyes dropped, half closed.**

**"You will either have to move out, or I get some kind of shrink. ****And not for me. I wish you would just tell me what happened that night, exactly three years ago, it was. You were in your room, totally unaware where you were, you looked like you had been dragged through a hedge backwards, never told me what happened, but you know what, you have come back like that every night since. This is it, the last straw for me. I couldn't deal with all your obsessions, and then you turn into this- this-"his voice trailed off.**

**He hit the arm of the chair frustratedly; he put his head in his hands, then after a minute breathed deeply and looked down at the book.**

**He hadn't looked up for a minute, reading that page over and over, disbelief mingling with the tiny bit of reality that is The Labyrinth. "But," he said, a slight angry madness lingering on the tip of his tongue.**

**"No dad!" Sarah leant forward trying to reach the book held again in his hands, but failing.**

**"****Stupid. So stupid. Sarah? Was that you giggling?" he didn't look up, thought I never giggled. "I didn't… really… I cant…I… wish…" he shook his head in disbelief in what he was just about to say, his eves never moving off the page "I, I wish…The goblins would come and take, you away. Right now."**

**Then it all went black.**


	2. Chapter 2

There was absolutely no wind. The air was thick and heavy like a dry desert. The day was old, it would be evening soon. Sarah looked around, her eyes widening every second.

Where was it, this labyrinth that she had long ago solved? She was surrounded by ruins, tiny walls that had once been Jarreth's mighty labyrinth. Bricks were laid in rubble, red grass peeping out from the bricks and out from the orange sand. There was no sound apart from the lonely cry of crows hanging off the leafless trees. Little crimson striped beetles wriggled silently through dead burnt tree roots and one spider hung from a single dusty web.

She crouched down. The spider had two large black eyes, not possible in this world but there two was only needed.

"Hello." Said Sarah, most things in this world could talk and a spider's advice in the underground could be as good as a pope in the above ground.

She waited, the spider didn't move.

"I'm Sarah" Sarah said. She heard a quietly loud squeal and the spider ran into a hole in the rubble.

Confused, she stood up. How can this have happened? How could her dreadfully wonderful labyrinth have turned into this red underworld in just the three years she had been gone? She walked around a bit, yes, she knew this place. Those were the ruins of the old wooden door that she had first entered the labyrinth through. The ongoing road didn't look so threatening now that all the openings could be seen, it didn't go on forever. After about three hundred metres was just a stop, a gold magical cloud had fallen down to the ground, dead. The magic that had made it go on forever had just, stopped. She walked slowly, carefully to the end, the gold cloud made a high pitched noise, like a TV on stand by. She reached out to touch; it was cold, ice cold. A single tear dripped down her face and she turned. Suddenly a thought occurred to her. Where would she go? There was no challenge to complete, no goblin king to defeat. _How do I get home?_ She thought despairingly. _What about dad? Toby? They must be so worried._ She buried her face in her hands. _No point crying, that won't solve anything._ She sniffed back her tears and began searching for anything, anything at all that might help her get home, or even help her find a voice. She would even be grateful to hear her stepmother's voice.

"Sarah" said a deep sorrowful voice. She looked around, there was no-one to be seen. "Sarah" the voice said again. Sarah frantically looked around to see where the voice was coming from. "Sarah" it came again.

"I can't see you" she wailed, not sure how loud to talk.

"Look up" the voice echoed mournfully off the rocks and ruins. Sarah looked up, there was a constellation of stars whizzing and whirling so brightly it lit up the ground. "Look closer" the voice said. Sarah squinted into the light; her eyes bringing her closer, zooming into the constellation and making her feel drunkenly dizzy. She left the ground, not looking back to see her body still standing there, she gasped. This was no constellation; it was a face, the angled face of Jareth. She looked down, everywhere was black and she was wearing her beautiful ball gown. There he stood, right in front of her; she smiled slightly, loving the shimmery feeling of the dress on her bear arms. Her jewellery gave off a silently sweet static squeak as she touched it with her silver ringed hands. She looked into the pair of eyes, they were colourless, and all of Jareth seemed to be made out of bright white dots, like he had some very fine unearthly silver powder consuming his whole body. Sarah reached out and touched his cheek, it gave off that same silent squeak that her jewellery did. His eyes were a light blue and light green, just very slightly colourful like a splash on top of the vast silver being in front of her.

They were both silent for a minute. Then Jareth spoke.

"Sarah" he said, gasping slightly. He looked sincere, and then he crumpled, a few glittering tears fell down his face. "Look at my labyrinth". Sarah felt a deep whelm of pity for him, forgetting what he had done to her, she reached out and hugged him. She hugged him so close, what a funny picture, she thought. The starman and lady stardust, the beauty and the beast. His eyes were covered up by his hands and he sighed, looked up. His face had no blemishes.

"I'm sorry" he said. "I'm so sorry".

"It's ok" she replied. After he didn't say anything, she thought she would start. How unusual it was for her to see Jareth crying, but she felt no disorientation at all, like she was home. This was funny as she was actually having an out of body experience, looking at a silver version of the goblin king in the middle of the underground sky.

"So… erm… Jareth" Sarah asked cautiously. She wasn't sure how to react when men cried; especially the man she thought had never shed a tear in his whole life. "What has happened here? I mean, how could it have got like this over three years?"

"It was you, when you left."

Sarah wasn't quite sure how to react to that. I mean, what was she supposed to do? Re-arrange time? _That was his job._ She thought sourly.

"You defeated me." He said, and Sarah understood. The goblin king was defeated; the labyrinth had gone to ruins. It was simple, the same laws applied from the brink of existence. He lost, he looses. But it was more than that, he was no being anymore, he served no purpose there and the above world would definitely not take such a character, they had their own to deal with.

"I defeated you" said Sarah slowly, a mix of feelings in her gut, guilt, happiness (after all, she did defeat the goblin king) fear, pity and that same weird sense of belonging.

Suddenly he looked as if he had remembered something, something good. Jareth let out a grin, pointy toothed with a glint in his eyes. "You are now the goblin queen, you have to re-build your labyrinth".


End file.
